Connect Google Ads to Power BI in 2023

The Giant that is Google

Unless you have just arrived from Mars, you are aware how big Google is. A true modern business mastodon, Google has literally shaped and still shapes our lives, one of the few companies that became a verb and a frequently used one at that.

Google’s advertising business was estimated to stand at about $150 billion in 2021 and more than 80% of that comes from Google Ads. It is difficult to calculate the exact return of investment on Google Ads, but according to some estimates it is at least about 200%, i.e. you will earn $2 from every dollar spent on Google Ads.

Google Ads data and how to analyze it

The goal of every campaign, of every ad is to end is to yield results and that depends on what has been set as a campaign goal. If you want your next campaign to be more successful than the previous one, you have to analyze the data, look at the data in the right way, draw the right conclusions and optimize your campaigns.

Often the best way to have a look at marketing data is to use a visualization tool, and few visualization tools come close to Power BI. So, here we will explain how to Connect Google Ads to Power BI. 

What is Power BI?!

Before we get into the details of exporting Google Ads data to Power BI, let’s say a few words about Power BI, the basic features of this software and its use. Power BI is a tool developed by Microsoft and the primary focus is business intelligence, hence Power BI. It is a bit misleading to refer to Power BI as a software, because it is a collection of services, apps and software solutions, under the same platform, powered by one of the tech giants – Microsoft. 

Power BI offers a lot of flexibility and it is available as a desktop tool, as an online software as a service (SaaS) and there are also mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows. 

Look at the data in the right way

The amount of data you can pull from Google Ads campaigns and the amount of data that Google has on each of us is quite astonishing. Getting lost in all that data happens to a lot of marketers, but don’t worry about that, that’s exactly the type of problem that we are looking to solve with the Windsor.ai connector. 

Here’s how to connect Google Ads to Power BI

Let’s go through the process of connecting Google Ads to Power BI with Windsor.ai. First you need to register and log in with Windsor.ai. Then you need to select Google Ads as data source.

Once you do that you will need to sign in with Google, i.e. give Windsor.ai permission to access your Google Ads account in order to gather the data. You will be prompted to give access with detailed information on what type of access you’re granting and what will Windsor.ai be able to do with the data.

The next step is to choose the data destination, or in this case to choose Power BI. There are multiple potential destinations and two separate options for Power BI – Desktop and Web. 

Once you have selected, you will need to choose the data fields that you wish to show in Power BI and then click “get data”. The next step is to copy the API URL and then to paste it into your Power BI account after you have logged in to it. 

After that you are free to have a go at visualizing and presenting the data as you wish. If you haven’t used it before, you will see that Power BI really offers a wide range of options. Your Google Ads data will look a lot more presentable and you will be able to optimize your campaigns a lot more efficiently. 

Connect Google Ads data data to Power BI

And if you have other data sources, you’re running campaigns on other platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., you can add them as data sources as well and then select blended data in “Data Destination”. This way, you will be able to analyze and visualize the data from all your campaigns from all data sources together. Read more on how to connect your data to Power BI.

Try Windsor.ai today

Access all your data from your favorite sources in one place.
Get started for free with a 30 - day trial.

Start Free Trial